This week, community leaders are circulating a petition asking the Kenton County Fiscal Court to consider issuing public improvement bonds to rebuild Latonia Lakes' streets and alleys in accordance with county subdivision regulations.

If that is approved, residents would pay for the roadwork "in a fair and consistent way" through an annual assessment on their county property tax bills for at least 30 years, county officials say. Once the work was finished, the county would be responsible for the maintenance and repair of Latonia Lakes' roads.

Since residents voted to dissolve their tiny city in November 2006, no one has taken responsibility for Latonia Lakes' roads. Most roads are sinking and crumbling, and massive potholes can be found throughout the little Kenton County community just south of Taylor Mill. When it snows, no one plows the side roads, and one garbage collector recently stopped serving most of Latonia Lakes, saying the roads were tearing up the company's trucks.

Because Latonia Lakes' roads were not built according to county subdivision standards, Kenton County officials have said they aren't legally obligated to repair and maintain the private roads in the unincorporated community.

Community leaders plan to present the petition to Kenton County Attorney Garry Edmondson before Kenton Fiscal Court's next regular meeting on April 8 at the county courthouse in Independence.

The petition does not obligate residents to a bond issue. Public hearings would be required before Fiscal Court decided whether to issue public improvement bonds for Latonia Lakes roads.

However, county leaders told the nearly 100 Latonia Lakes residents who attended a meeting at Oak Ridge Baptist Church Friday night that they need some assurance property owners would pay for road improvements, as many have balked at doing so in the past. That assurance is needed before Kenton Fiscal Court would agree to spend money on a study to get a more accurate idea of the project's cost, Kenton County Judge-executive Steve Arlinghaus said.

"I have no problem with us going forward and getting an engineer involved before we go out to bid, but we need to have some level of confidence that you, as a community, are interested in going forward before we do so," Arlinghaus said.

The judge-executive, along with Edmondson, Kenton County Commissioner Kris Knochelmann, Chris Warneford, the county's superintendent of public works, and Kenton County Administrator Joe Shriver were among those attending Friday's community meeting on the issue.

Kenton County's department of public works has estimated the Latonia Lakes road work could cost $1.8 million to $2 million, but those "are very preliminary figures" based on the county's experience in repairing and fixing roads, county officials said.

Edmondson estimated the annual assessment to property owners at about $500 per lot, but he cautioned that figure could vary, depending on the project's actual cost and the method of assessment that's chosen.

Resident Harold Bullock said he supports getting a more accurate cost estimate because the figures he's seen through the years have steadily risen.

"I really don't think anybody's trying to get out of paying this, but some really big numbers have been tossed around," Bullock said. He added property owners, some of whom are new to the area, shouldn't have to bear the entire burden for road problems "that have been around since the 1960s and 70s."

Twenty-seven property owners signed the Latonia Lakes road petition Friday night. However, Jamie Back, one of the community organizers, is going door to door this week, and she said she expects most property owners will support fixing the roads.

Back, who has lived in Latonia Lakes for about seven years, said she also plans to do an accurate count of occupied households when she goes door to door. Although there are 290 lots in Latonia Lakes, some residents live in homes built on multiple lots, and other houses have been abandoned.

"I think Friday's meeting went very well," Back said. "Residents were just glad to be heard. Now we've got to show county officials that we're serious about doing something to fix our roads."